The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, David Bradbury, yesterday reintroduced the Sons of Gwalia amendment to the Corporations Act, which was first tabled in June but lapsed when the election was called.The Corporations Amendment (Sons of Gwalia) Bill 2010 sets aside a controversial 2007 High Court ruling that gave shareholders in certain circumstances the same rights as unsecured creditors in an insolvency.The High Court decision overturned the long-standing convention that shareholders stand behind unsecured creditors in an insolvency.The Bill, if passed, will provide that all claims in relation to buying, selling or otherwise dealing with shares are to be ranked equally and after all other creditors' claims.It will remove the right of shareholders to vote as creditors in a voluntary administration or a winding up unless they receive permission from the Court. The High Court in Sons of Gwalia v Margaretic ruled that a shareholder in a failed company had the same right as an unsecured creditor to pursue a claim against the company in cases where the shareholder had suffered loss as a result of misleading and deceptive conduct by the company. Banks lobbied hard for the government to overturn the High Court ruling, which raised the prospect of even longer and more complex insolvencies than currently operate, with available funds to be shared by more parties.